When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
That’s a great question! I tend to read Persian classic poetry although I do not write in that particular form. What matters to me is not necessarily the technicalities, but the perspectives, positionalities, and approaches a poet proposes in relation to phenomena. Persian culture is intertwined with poetry and that fascinates me when a grandparent with no background in literature knows some poetry by heart and reads them to their loved ones. Last time I needed such “renewal,” to use your words, I went over Khayyam poetry. That said, I read modern and contemporary Persian poetry for renewal and other purposes, too. Last summer, my partner and I had a scheduled Simin Behbahani ghazal reading every night. In my last visit to Tehran, I bought some poetry books, including Rasool Rakhsha’s most recent publication, to keep up with ongoing poetry streams in Iran.
No comments:
Post a Comment